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The New Era in Education 



A Study in the Psychology of 

Correspondence Methods 

of Instruction 



By Rev. JOSEPH H. ODELL, D.D. 



An Address Delivered at the Dedication of the Instruction 

Building of the International Correspondence 

Schools, Scranton, Pa., Nov., 1910 









The New Era in Education 



IN ACCEPTING President Foster's invitation to speak at the 
dedication of this building I thought that the occasion 
might serve as an opportunity to do what I have wished to 
do for some time, namely, to formulate a confession of faith in 
the purposes, methods, and results of the unique institution 
known throughout the world as the International Correspondence 
Schools. You may think this a rather ambitious task, far 
beyond my knowledge and ability; and indeed it is, but I can 
save my face by pleading that confessions of faith are never 
absolute and final and are valuable in so far as they sincerely 
articulate the belief of their framers. Whether I possess any 
other qualifications or not, at least I claim sincerity. 

When I first came into contact with the International Corre- 
spondence Schools every inherited and acquired prejudice that I 
possessed was bristling with defiance, "like quills on the back of 
the fretful porcupine." I was the product of centuries of tradition 
and I carried myself with the proud and serene conservatism which 
the ancient European schools and colleges stamp upon their sons. 
Education was to me a formal and dignified process inseparably 
associated with Gothic architecture and under ecclesiastical super- 
vision. Its chief characteristic was dignity. Its foundation was 
dignity, it was gowned in dignity, and it failed of its mission if it 
did not produce dignity. It has taken me a long while to learn 
that dignity as an ideal is the last ditch of a defeated aristocracy. 
Democracy substitutes efficiency. Naturally, then, I thought of 
education as something given by an institution rather than as some- 
thing acquired by an individual. The process by which that fallacy 
was discredited and discarded was nothing short of an intellectual 
revolution. Of course it did not do away with the need of an insti- 
tution but it placed the emphasis upon the individual. It changed 
the nature of the institution. At various times thoughtful men 
have seen that such a change must take place. Many years ago 
Professor Huxley said: "7 conceive that two things are needful: On 
the one hand, a machinery for gathering information and providing 
instruction; on the other hand, a machinery for catching capable men 
wherever they are to be found, and turning them to account." Now, 



exactly what Professor Huxley said was needful Thomas J. Foster 
created. He created it without knowing that the learned scientist 
had already defined it. And that creation was probably the most 
masterful stroke of genius in the realm of education since the first 
teacher gathered the first group of scholars into an organized school. 
But it took me a long while to reach that conclusion — years of care- 
ful observation of methods and results, years of thoughtful investiga- 
tion of the psychological principles upon which the process rests. 

I was repelled by the International Correspondence Schools 
because they were frankly and even brazenly commercial. The 
Schools were owned by a business corporation which said that the 
world could be educated and the educators could be adequately 
remunerated for their work. What audacity! What sacrilege! 
Hitherto it had been a part of the dignity of educational beneficence 
to starve the benefactors. To expect education to be put upon a 
sound economic basis was like asking for a miracle in a sphere and 
in an age where no one has the right to expect the miraculous. 
And lo! the unexpected, the impossible happened. In nineteen 
years about $50,000,000.00 worth of scholarships have been sold, 
and $4,660,602.07 cash dividends have been paid to the stock- 
holders. But I said, dividends are not dignified! Why not? 
Dividends on beer are considered dignified. So are dividends on 
oil, and steel, and wool, and soap. These last are the necessities 
of human progress and well-being. But what is so necessary to 
human progress and well-being as education? Then I investigated 
the subject more closely. The ancient institutions which are 
enswathed in benevolent dignity are also commercial, only it is 
not a frank and advertised commerce. Every student who enters 
Oxford, or Edinburgh, or Harvard, pays fees for tuition, for text- 
books, for laboratory privileges; and if he does not pay enough to 
cover the expenses of the institution it is because some one else 
has paid it for him and foreordained him to be a charity student 
whether he wishes to be or not. The fees of college students meet 
about 50 per cent, of college expenses. But it might be argued 
quite reasonably that a large percentage of college outlay goes for 
features that are not necessary to sound education — the frills and 
fine linen that seem inseparable from the idea of collegiate dignity. 
In course of time I reached the conclusion that if a student could 
get exactly what he needed and could pay for exactly what he got 
he would be saved from the degradation of dignified pauperism 



and might launch himself upon his career with self-respect intact 
and self-reliance acquired. Thus my prejudice was swept away. 

Then, when I realized that more than a million and a quarter 
men had enrolled as students of the International Correspondence 
Schools it dawned upon me that at last the first part of Professor 
Huxley's desideratum had been met; "a machinery for gathering 
information and providing instruction" had been created such as 
met the needs of multitudes who could not or would not avail 
themselves of the ancient and orthodox institutions. 

Some idea of the wide scope of the Schools may be obtained 
from a glance at the enrolment records up to the middle of Novem- 
ber, 1910: 

School op Total Enrolments 

Advertising 20,806 

Architecture 81,479 

Arts and Crafts 55.547 

Chemistry 18,888 

Civil Engineering 65,782 

Civil Service 36, 139 

Commerce 188.847 

Drawing 133,21 1 

Electrical Engineering 212,046 

Electrotherapeutics 1 ,553 

English Branches 46,000 

Languages 20,37 1 

Commercial Law , 6,235 

Lettering and Sign Painting. ; 30,999 

Locomotive Running 68,780 

Mathematics (Complete) 7,040 

Mechanical Engineering 116,067 

Mining 41,764 

Navigation 3,252 

Pedagogy 6,518 

Plumbing, Heating, and Ventilation 29,134 

Steam Engineering 119,108 

Textiles 10,708 

Window Trimming 3,408 

Miscellaneous Students 10,554 

Total 1,334,234 

5 



Whenever figures reach the million mark they become impres- 
sive. But the significant thing about these enrolments is not their 
number. Every unit represents an individual — a living, hoping, 
aspiring man. Who are they? I find upon inquiry that they are 
taken in the main from the mass of muscle workers whom we call 
the laboring class. At the time of enrolment the overwhelming 
majority have never reached fractions in arithmetic, thousands 
can do little more than read and write, not a few have had none of 
the advantages of even primary education. Of course there are 
many students in the Schools who have had a college training and 
are taking an I. C. S. subject as special post-graduate work. Now, 
any institution that can take the manual laborer, awaken his brain, 
stimulate his dormant faculties and lift him into the order of the 
mind laborer — and do it all upon such a gigantic scale — is a national 
asset and a national force such as merits recognition. 

The time has passed when orthodox educationalists can afford to 
look upon correspondence instruction with disdain. Great Britain 
has demonstrated in the work of the London University Correspond- 
ence College what good can be accomplished through the mails. 
Some of our best American colleges and universities have frankly 
admitted and adopted the method. Among formal educational 
institutions Chicago University, under President Harper, may be 
called the pioneer. The University publishes a special catalog for 
its correspondence-study department. In the 1910 number I find 
the statement: "Experience has shown that many subjects can 
be taught successfully by correspondence. Direction and correc- 
tion can oftentimes be given as effectively in writing as by word of 
mouth." Page 8. 

The University also recognizes the work of the student. 

" (a) A certificate is granted for the satisfactory completion 
of the recitation work in any major or minor course. 

" (6) Admission credit is given for courses covering college 
entrance requirements, which are satisfactorily completed and 
passed by examination. 

" (c) College credit is given for courses of a college grade satis- 
factorily completed and passed by examination. 

" {d) If the student has a record of residence work in the Univer- 
sity, credits gained from correspondence courses are immediately 
transferred to that record; if not, they are held in the correspond- 
ence study department until the student secures such a record." 
Page 9. 



Chicago University offers fifty-two courses by correspondence. 

The Universities of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, West 
Virginia, and several others have likewise adopted the method and 
are achieving some satisfactory results. 

The weakness of the work done by these institutions is their lack 
of properly prepared textbooks, the books they use being the 
ordinary class-room texts, which are not adapted to home study. 
Such books involve the presence of a teacher able to give verbal 
explanation of difficulties and processes. They are usually written 
to aid the teacher in teaching rather than the student in studying. 

The International Correspondence Schools have provided a 
series of incomparable textbooks of their own which have cost 
them not less than $1,946,331.00. I have examined them with care 
and find several unique features: 

1. The textbooks are written from the standpoint of the 
student who must study alone. 

2. The textbooks take no preliminary knowledge for granted; 
each subject begins with the most elementary material and the 
student is not allowed to go forward until he has thoroughly mas- 
tered the preceding lesson. 

3. Every subject is subdivided into small branches in order 
that the student shall not be overwhelmed with the magnitude of 
his task. 

4. The textbooks are under constant revision. This is done 
sometimes to simplify or clarify a difficult passage or problem; 
at other times it is necessitated by new discoveries or applications 
within the subject treated. Thus the books are the nearest up to 
date of any published. 

5. The textbooks are simple and practical. They contain 
only the facts, principles, processes, and applications of the sub- 
ject under study. For example, they do not occupy the student 
with the derivation of formulas, but they teach him what formulas 
mean and how to apply them. All speculative questions are 
omitted; matter that is of mere historical interest is eliminated. 

6. The textbooks are copiously and accurately illustrated by 
the most perfect process known in the printing world. Wherever 
it is possible the student is aided by diagram, sketch, photograph, 
or colored plate. 

At one time, after examining the marvelous and costly volumes 
of the Architectural Course, I said, " What a shame that the I. C. S. 
textbooks are not more widely known to educationalists. ' ' Imagine 

7 



my surprise upon being told that nearly all of the collegiate insti- 
tutions of the country use the I. C. S. books in one form or another; 
some as class-room texts, some as collateral reading, some for sup- 
plementary work, and others for reference purposes. The Engi- 
neering Courses are so preeminently practical and up to date that 
they are well nigh indispensable wherever those subjects are taught. 
For any one to think that instruction by correspondence is a 
fad or an exploitation of education for mere financial returns is to 
display a culpable ignorance of the most phenomenal develop- 
ment of modern education. The men who are in closest touch 
with the needs and opportunities of today are admitting that the 
new method gives promise of making a substantial contribution 
toward the solution of some of our most chronic industrial and 
national problems. President Taft's letter to the president of the 
University of Wisconsin shows the set of opinion and indirectly 
puts the seal of the Government upon correspondence teaching: 

*The White House, Washington, March 4, 1910 
My Dear President Van Hise: 

I understand that the Army and Navy Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciation desires the cooperation of the Correspondence Department of the 
University of Wisconsin in furnishing additional educational opportunities 
to our soldiers and sailors. The patriotic work of this organization, of which 
I have personal knowledge, means much to the personnel of the men in the 
army and navy. 

The excellent work of your university is now far-reaching in bringing 
education to the youth of the nation. Even greater would be this contribu- 
tion were her adequate facilities placed at the disposal of these thousands 
of worthy young men enlisted in the service of our country. 

Knowing the need and opportunity, I want to commend this matter 
to your earnest attention. 

Very sincerely yours, 

(Signed) Wm. H. Taft 
Dr. Charles Van Hise, President, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis 

It is significant that the International Correspondence Schools 
had already enrolled 5,000 students from the United States Navy 
at the time President Taft wrote to Doctor Van Hise. It is still 
more to the point to affirm that competent authorities admit the 
International Correspondence Schools' textbooks on "Navigation" 
to be the clearest, most complete, and most practical ever published. 

Under the Personnel Act of Congress of 1901, providing that 
enlisted men may obtain commissions in the United States Navy 
by competitive examination, twenty-five (25) have successfully 

♦Published in Collier's Weekly, November 19, 1910. 

8 



passed and received their commissions and rank. Of those twenty- 
five (25), eighteen (18) are either graduates or students of the 
International Correspondence Schools. 

In the light of the foregoing facts I do not think that I claim 
too much in believing that the International Correspondence 
Schools have already changed the first part of Professor Huxley's 
prophetic wish into concrete and effective reality — "a machinery 
for gathering information and providing instruction" has been 
erected and is now operating with marvelous efficiency. In view 
of my earlier scepticism I wish at this time to give the above con- 
clusion with the emphasis of perfect candor. 

The second part of Professor Huxley's ideal — " Catching capable 
men wherever they are to be found, and turning them to account" — 
forms the crucial test of an educational enterprise such as this. 
Here it stands or falls. No one doubts that most of our universities, 
colleges, and schools of technology gather information and provide 
instruction. As to their success in so doing we may simply say that 
it varies in degree. We may also admit that they turn many 
capable men to account. But I think we must all acknowledge 
that they do not "catch capable men wherever they are to he found." 
In fact, one of the chief differences between the old type of institu- 
tion and the International Correspondence Schools lies in this: 
men who want an education have to find the university, while the 
International Correspondence Schools find the men who need an 
education. Now it seems to me that one of the important func- 
tions of an educational institution is not only to meet a demand 
already felt but to create a demand- where it ought to be felt; that 
is, the capable men must be found. The search for them must be 
unremitting and thorough. Every section of society and every 
aggregation of men must be prospected and assayed with infinite 
care and pains, and wherever the likely material is discovered it 
must be seized and turned to account. The International Corre- 
spondence Schools employ no less than 1,600 men in the United 
States and Canada whose one mission in life is to go through the 
heterogeneous mass of humanity as the Apostles of Ambition, to 
discover and direct and inspire their fellows with a desire for the 
benefits of education. I do not know any innovation upon exist- 
ing methods more radical and revolutionary than this. Here is an 
educational institution that spends more than two million dollars 
a year to create a demand for education. 



This consideration brings me to the psychology involved in the 
methods employed. To understand the processes and results of 
this new educational movement we must go into the secret labora- 
tories of human consciousness. Many people dismiss the success 
of the I. C. S. with a wave of the hand and the oracular remark that 
Mr. Foster simply supplied a demand. That is only half a truth. 
In a large measure the Correspondence Schools created the demand 
which they subsequently supplied. I have spoken of the 1,600 
Representatives of the Schools as the Apostles of Ambition. But 
first of all they are the Prophets of Discontent. 

We may say that discontent is universal. The characteristic 
most common to humanity is the feeling of dissatisfaction. Not 
only are all men discontented, but there are many who do not 
understand their discontent until it is brought home to them 
by others. The primary duty then of these Prophets of Discontent 
is to diagnose, to articulate, to interpret the unrest of humanity. 
A very large part of the social dissatisfaction does not recognize 
itself. It has never tried to define itself, to formulate itself; it 
lies in the human system as an unlocated ache, an obscure and 
unidentified ailment. Well, supposing we let it alone, what will 
happen? One of two things. In the first place it may settle down 
into a permanent and paralyzing pessimism and consign men to a 
life of spiritless drudgery. They will resign themselves to becom- 
ing an animate but soulless part of the vast mechanism of indus- 
trial society. Life, upon those terms, is little better than death. 
On the other hand, this discontent may become suddenly explosive 
and result in anarchy. Long brooding over ills that are not under- 
stood changes a man into an Ishmael and turns his hand against 
every man's hand. Discontent is a negative quality, and when a 
negative quality becomes active it grows destructive. The Inter- 
national Correspondence Schools accept this discontent as the 
ground of all their work. They hail the condition as a hopeful 
sign and for a time — only for a time — they seek to accentuate it. 
But the Representatives of the Schools know what they are doing. 
They are opportunists and optimists. They hold a valuable secret 
— a secret of vital alchemy. They know how to transmute a nega- 
tive element into a positive. They change discontent into desire. The 
change is the mightiest event that takes place in human experience. 
In the history of biology a similar step marks the various decisive 
stages of evolution. Every advance from a lower form to a higher 
in animal life was the result of transforming a negative discontent 

10 



into a positive desire. That desire suggested the stimulus out of 
which the new powers and functions grew. 

Of course there are some very ordinary people who say that 
this is a simple thing to do — that you have only to advertise that 
you can make a porter into a president and the trick is done. 
Well, if you think it is easy, try it. But don't promise any one 
10 per cent, on the capital invested. No, there is a whole psychol- 
ogy bound up in that process. It is probable that desire is produced 
chiefly by making a man believe in himself. And to believe in 
himself a man must have at least a glimpse of his own latent 
powers. And to get a glimpse of his own latent powers he must 
see them first of all through the eyes of another man — a man who 
believes in him even when he cannot believe in himself. So the 
desire is really an infection — the confidence of one man invading 
another. That is why the I. C. S. spends more than two million 
dollars a year in sending its prophets and apostles throughout the 
country. 

But desire, like the day before creation, is without form and 
void : a vague, featureless and confused sort of emotion. It is like 
a balloon that can go up and up and up ; then east, then west, then 
north, then south; a thing of motion without direction, the sport 
of whims and winds. Desire wants anything, everything: country 
estates, marble-front palaces, automobiles, banks, bonds, senator- 
ships, ten-course dinners, horse shows, dress suits, cr§me de menthe, 
diamond studs, and a score of other things that lie in the golden 
haze of the horizon. Desire never does anything but dream. 
If you leave a man alone with his desires you will find him some- 
time later in an asylum. A lunatic is only a man who has had too 
many dreams to digest. 

So look out for the man who has nothing but desires. And the 
I. C. S. Representative does look out for the man. He changed 
dissatisfaction into desire in the first instance and naturally he 
feels some responsibility about the issue. He knows that desires 
are vague and indeterminate and impractical things, so he sets to 
work to bring them within definite and concrete compass and give 
them direction. In brief, he alters the shape of the balloon and 
equips it with a rudder. 

Now it is ambition. Ambition differs from desire in that it 
has an objective. Instead of wishing for everything it covets 
something. Thinking takes the place of dreaming. Ambition is 
knowing what you want and wanting it with all your soul and 

11 



mind and heart and strength, wanting it so passionately that you 
will sacrifice everything else to reach your end. It is the nar- 
rowing, the intensifying, the concentrating, the crystallizing of 
desire. It is the focusing of every wish, hope, and longing upon 
one definite object. This is the point at which the I. C. S. Rep- 
resentative becomes a priest as well as a prophet and an apostle. 
Here he stands beside an altar and must officiate at a sacrifice. 
He has brought his man through discontent into desire, he has 
guided desire into ambition ; now he must persuade his prospective 
student to surrender everything that would divert him or trammel 
his progress. It is the moment of dedication. If at this crucial 
stage a man can be persuaded to launch himself upon a well-defined 
course, turning away from everything of subordinate interest, 
relinquishing everything of lesser value, then purpose is formed. 
Every power of mind and body bows to the dictate of the will. 
Purpose is personality dominated by ambition. It is the whole 
man engaged and engrossed in the accomplishment of one object. 
Thus discontent and desire have been changed into a dynamic. 

It is probable that the result has been accomplished only 
through the aid of powerful stimulants. No stimulant is quite 
so effective as example. Stories of success are told and retold: 
of men who have broken away from a narrow and vulgar environ- 
ment, who have achieved great things with an equipment originally 
meager and neglected, who have discovered and utilized unsus- 
pected powers residing in their own natures, who have defied 
obstacles, overleapt barriers, grappled with combinations of fate, 
and doggedly concentrated upon one promising ideal. Such a 
recital galvanizes the will. The student now undergoes a remark- 
able change. He is no longer apologetic, timid, and shy. He 
takes on a temper of aggressiveness, carries himself with an air of 
resourceful self-confidence, looks circumstances in the face with a 
challenging boldness, and generally acts as if he were predestinated 
by Providence to greatness and success. 

Thus purpose produces three distinct things: courage, self- 
reliance, and concentration. These qualities will equip, any man 
for success. Courage is the disposition of heart that inspires 
him to attempt great things; self-reliance is the temper of mind 
that makes him believe he can accomplish great things; concentra- 
tion is the supremacy of will that causes him to achieve great 
things. When these three qualities are developed to their utmost 
and combined in equal proportion we call them by one name — 

12 



genius. Genius is not a freak of natural endowment, but a product 
of conscious evolution. 

Up to this point I have spoken as if the whole process of develop- 
ment were inspired and nurtured and consummated by the Field 
Representatives of the Schools. And indeed they do perform the 
chief function of this institution; their importance can hardly 
be exaggerated. There comes a time, however, when the student's 
chief contact is with the Instruction Department — not an exclusive 
contact, because there ought never to be any break in the inspirit- 
ing and fraternal relationship established between the student and 
the Representative. But although many or most of the qualities 
of which we have been speaking are discovered and cultivated and 
carried to a state of healthy and sturdy growth by the Apostle of 
Optimism they are brought to maturity only by the discipline of 
study. It is when courage and self-reliance and concentration 
are exercised upon the tasks and problems of the subject to be 
mastered that they become valuable and permanent habits. Habit 
is doing a thing until it is easier to do it than not to do it. When 
the student has learned how to attack and assimilate and apply 
the lessons of his first pamphlet he has keyed his muscles, nerves, 
and mind to mastering the lessons of every subsequent pamphlet. 
By the time he has completed his Course he has acquired the habit 
of mastery to such a degree that he can master anything — his 
temper, his trade, his immediate environment. Such men are at a 
premium in the commercial world. Masters are always looking 
out for men who mean to be masters. 

One of the best features of correspondence instruction is that 
the student who gains knowledge by this method has unconsciously 
gained more than knowledge. He has learned to trust the processes 
and conclusions of his own mind. Perhaps the chief limitation 
of a classroom is the inevitable habit it develops of a student 
leaning on the professor for every detail, thus destroying both 
self-confidence and initiative. Later in life, when a man is making 
calculations for a dam in Arizona, or drawing plans for a flume 
in Alaska, or estimating the horsepower of a cascade in Argentina 
there will be no professor within twenty-five feet, and he must 
either trust himself or fail. 

Another feature of correspondence instruction is that the 
student comes to realize himself as an individual. This is so 
important that I greatly regret my inability to work it out in full 
today. Perhaps by indicating my thought in a few sentences 

13 



you may be able to elaborate and complete the idea at your leisure. 
In the centuries of the past all of the great movements of mankind 
were movements of masses. The distribution of races throughout 
Asia and Europe were caused by migrations of tribes and nations. 
It is said that the building of a great wall in China led to the fall 
of Rome. The Tartar tribes of the north, unable to push their 
excess population south, turned to the west. This movement of a 
fierce barbaric horde forced certain Slavonic tribes still further 
west. They in turn compelled masses of Huns to seek a new home. 
In doing so they pressed upon the Vandals and the Goths who could 
no longer regard the Alps as a national barrier and by pouring into 
Italy they overthrew the greatest empire of the ages. But notice 
two things: every step was a mass movement, and the cause was 
always pressure from behind. Everything has changed now. All 
effectual progress is by the initiative of the individual, and the 
motive power is no longer pressure from behind, but attraction 
from before. The immigrants who have been coming to this country 
for the past two hundred and fifty years have come as individuals. 
The men who have risen to eminence in modem life — whether in 
commerce, politics, or invention — have done so by their own indi- 
vidual effort. Now, the purpose of the correspondence school is to 
lure men forward as individuals. The institution has no social 
panacea by which it promises to put a magic lever under the whole 
race and lift it as an entity to a higher level. And the student of 
the correspondence schools learns as his very first lesson that only 
by his own individual effort can he hope to achieve distinction, or 
wealth, or success. He must not conceive himself as part of a 
class, society, or organization, that will do for him what he is 
unable or unwilling to do for himself. He is taught that he is 
possessed of certain powers, that those powers are capable of almost 
infinite expansion, and that with those powers he himself can win 
what his ambition desires. It is one of the greatest lessons a man 
can learn and nowhere can he learn it so quickly and effectively 
as through the correspondence method of instruction. 

Another benefit in which I am profoundly interested is the 
ethical awakening that takes place in the scholar. When a student 
recognizes the extent and the worth of his powers and realizes that 
the trophies of life go to individuals upon individual records he is 
compelled to formulate a theory of relative values. Things and 
occupations that were once quite innocent diversions he begins to 
look upon as subtle temptations of the devil. A man who has 

14 



begun to live does not want to loaf. One who is wooing fame or 
fortune finds no fun in promiscuous flirting on a crowded promen- 
ade. A student who has felt the stimulation of ambition grows 
afraid of the stimulation of alcohol. Such an one looks askance 
at anything that may weaken his resolution or retard his progress. 
Before long his conscience becomes the officer of the day and posts 
a sentinel at every gateway of the citadel. It is the reaching of 
this point that makes me openly enthusiastic about the mission 
of the International Correspondence Schools. I confess that I 
take very little interest in any institution or process that does not 
ultimately develop moral qualities. And as a student of psychol- 
ogy and a preacher of ethics I have sufficient testimony of the 
moral influence of the Schools to compel me to be a friend and 
advocate. 

Perhaps I ought to give briefly my reason for this attitude. 
I hold it to have been proved beyond question that it is impos- 
sible to affect one part of human nature without at the same time 
affecting the whole of human nature. By way of illustration let 
me appeal to a common and oft-described experience. A man 
falls in love. I do not pretend to define scientifically just what that 
means. Love has been called a tickling in the heart where you 
can't get at it to scratch it. Perhaps that is as near as we shall 
ever get to a precise definition. But the tickling in the heart is 
only the first symptom of the blessed malady. Now, not being 
able to locate and scratch the exact spot, the lover must find other 
means of expressing his sensations. To do so with any degree of 
adequacy he has to call his various and varied powers and faculties 
into play. First of all he summons memory, and bids memory 
tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So 
memory says: "No, you were never in love before. You may 
have thought you were, you may have acted as if you were, but 
hitherto it was illusion: this is reality." So that settled, imagina- 
tion awakes, and the man becomes a poet. She has eyes like the 
blue of the faultless summer sky, and cheeks like the bloom of a 
perfect summer rose, and a voice like the song of summer birds, 
and her breath is as sweet as an early summer morning, and her 
lips — well, the summer provides no simile and he jumps to heaven 
for a figure of speech. Courage is stimulated also, and he wishes 
he might go forth and slay giants and dragons like the knights of 
old, wearing his lady's token. Then he becomes an artist. He 
finds every landscape that has a quiet, secluded beauty; he dresses 

15 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



029 928 657 5 

himself with painful care and scrupulous taste; he suddenly develops 
a marked preference for violets. And his generosity grows into a 
solicitous benevolence: "Have another!" he says, time and time 
again. But other qualities are stirred as well. Industry becomes 
a passion because he needs promotion. He studies real estate 
values and architecture, for he must have a home. He cultivates 
the habit of unvarying punctuality. He cuts out offensive habits 
and shuns dubious friends. He insures his life and makes the policy 
in favor of his estate. He even becomes religious — formally per- 
haps, but he goes to church and sings lustily, "Blest be the tie 
that binds." 

Now, all that I mean by this example is that nothing ever 
reaches down into the storerooms of human nature and stirs one 
quality without setting all the rest in commotion. You cannot 
stimulate or elevate one attribute of the being without keying 
all the others to a higher pitch. It may be difficult for you to see 
that a Course in Concrete Reinforcement eventuates in character 
reinforcement, but that is what actually happens. The I. C. S. 
Representatives may think they are simply making money, while 
all the time they are making men. So we build better than we 
know. 

Therefore I think it eminently fitting that we should gather 
together today to dedicate this building. The accepted meaning 
of the word dedicate is "to set apart to sacred use." Therefore 
we set this building apart to the sacred use of making and remaking 
men — ^by creating ambition, generating purpose, liberating latent 
energies, guiding misdirected powers, and placing under the dis- 
cipline of habit those qualities and faculties with which God has 
so liberally endowed men. Let us hope that with these new 
facilities this institution may be more successful than ever in 
" catching capable men wherever they are to be found, and turning 
them to account." If the past is any prophecy of the future the 
International Correspondence Schools ought to grow to be one of 
the very greatest benefactors of society; because I do not think it 
possible for men to perform their social duties until they have 
realized their individual rights. So good fortune to the Schools 
and its Representatives! All hail to President Foster, the pioneer 
of a new era for all who struggle and aspire ! 



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